


silver linings

by thisisthefamilybusiness



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - The Seed Family Goes To Jail Forever Because They Did So Much Crime, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Heavy Angst, Holidays, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Past Brainwashing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Sad with a Happy Ending, Survivor Guilt, art therapy, but how happy it ends, holiday fluff, like i cannot overstate how angsty this starts, this is basically just serious heavy angst with a happy fluffy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 06:50:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15358671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisthefamilybusiness/pseuds/thisisthefamilybusiness
Summary: It’s only Grace’s visits that keep her going.All the common rooms in every hospital ward and clinic are the same, no matter how expensive the medical bill ends up being when Agnes is finally discharged. They sit at a small table, and for a few moments, Agnes isn’t trapped in a loop of nightmares and programming she can’t escape.They could be in Hope County again, pine needles underfoot and talking off the adrenaline rush of the last peggie attack. Their conversation topics are the same as they’d been back then, their collected pasts and old stories from lives that felt like they’d been centuries ago even back then.The magazines are nice, too, Agnes supposes. Always nice to keep up to date with the latest doomsday prepper trends.





	silver linings

**Author's Note:**

> me to me: i'm gonna give the lesbians everything they want*
> 
> (*provided that what my desires as a lesbian are is reflective of what lesbians want, which is a fic that starts with a lady deputy who's worried she's been broken completely but discovering through a healthy forming relationship and therapy that she's just as whole as she ever was, and ending with a big gay proposal to grace armstrong)
> 
> title from the kacey musgraves song "silver linings"   
> _been run through the wringer / and pushed plum to your limit / you say you're just unlucky but luck ain't what you need / because if you're ever gonna find a four leaf clover / you gotta get a little dirt on your hands / and if you wanna find a head that fits your shoulder / you're gonna have to go to the dance .... because if you're ever gonna find a silver lining / it's gotta be a cloudy day_

It’s never going to get better. 

The damage from the drugs, the brainwashing—it’s always going to be there. The fucking nightmares will never end. 

It’s going to get easier, according to every damn therapist that Agnes’s been dragged to for the past year. But her mind is never going to go back to the way things were before. 

The fucking—the fucking nightmares are what kill her. The same one, played on a loop: snapping the necks of at least two dozen militia members in the hazy hell-world Jacob had created from the Veterans’ Center. Ignoring their begging as Jacob encouraged her to kill more and more, as he praised her with every dropped body. 

Agnes still doesn’t know if that was her—if she’d killed them in reality, too, or if it was all a fantasy. That’s the worst part. 

The meds don’t help her sleep, the therapy definitely doesn’t. Agnes’s eyes are more often red than brown these days, exhausted constantly. One of the therapists said maybe she should try hypnosis again, to see if they could undo what Jacob had managed, but like fuck was Agnes letting anyone else into her head after the Seeds. Who knew what they’d find in there that should have been left to rot? 

She checked herself into a long-term facility for a while, but that barely did shit. If anything, Agnes spends most of her time worrying she’s going to kill one of the nurses in her sleep. 

( _ It nearly happened once, when she was in the hospital for the second time, three months after everything was over. One of the night nurses came in to check on her and Agnes had been deep under, had been certain she’d been dreaming again and the nurse was one of the militia members Jacob conjured up for her to slaughter. The worst part was that Agnes knew damn well that the only reason the woman had survived was that sleep had sapped some of her strength from her and she couldn’t get a clean snap of the neck. If Agnes had been awake—God, if Agnes hadn’t been groggy, that nurse would have been dead before she even had a chance to scream for help. _ )

How was she supposed to live like this? She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t talk to another goddamn therapist who didn’t understand what it was like to stop caring about the sound of someone begging for their life. Couldn’t listen to another excuse about how she’d done only what she’d had to do. At least—and the thought makes Agnes’s stomach curdle to even think it—Pratt and the rest of them could say they were brainwashed and not in control of themselves the whole time. 

Most of Agnes’s sin, though... That was all her own. There had to have been a different way, a less bloody way—but she’d never seen it, and even if she had, she’d never taken it. 

She should have died in Hope County. 

They all know that. She was never supposed to survive all that shit, she should have died in Hope County right alongside the Seeds. It would have been better for everyone. Easier on her sister, who’s spent the past few months driving over from Helena to ferry Agnes around the revolving door of hospital and clinic admissions that her life had become. Easier on her fucking lawyer, who seemed to think Agnes gave a shit if she spent the rest of her life in prison. Easier on Grace—Agnes’s throat tightens involuntarily, a lump forming in it. Every night, no matter where Agnes was, Grace came to visit, same old half-smile on her face and some random new magazine tucked under her arm for Agnes to read.

If she’d died, she might have been a martyr.

Now she’s just a broken old woman.

* * *

It’s only Grace’s visits that keep her going.

All the fucking common rooms in every hospital ward and clinic are the same, no matter how expensive the medical bill ends up being when Agnes is finally discharged. Agnes always has a seat that’s her usual, tucked in a corner opposite the door so she has no vulnerable points. Grace comes in at the start of her visiting hours like a visiting angel, a bright point of sunshine in hospitals where Agnes doesn’t even get a window that actually opens. They sit at Agnes’s usual table, and for a few moments, Agnes isn’t trapped in a loop of nightmares and programming she can’t escape.

They could be in Hope County again, pine needles underfoot and talking off the adrenaline rush of the last peggie attack. Their conversation topics are the same as they’d been back then, their collected pasts and old stories from lives that felt like they’d been centuries ago even back then. It doesn’t matter that they’re wearing  _ civilian  _ clothes now, that Agnes’s graying once-short dark hair has grown out well past her ears and Grace doesn’t have black paint smeared over her cheekbones. 

The magazines are nice, too, Agnes supposes. Always nice to keep up to date with the latest doomsday prepper trends. 

( _ They’d fought only once. It had been a week since Agnes had nearly killed the night shift nurse and she was finally allowed to have visitors again. The common room was empty except for the two orderlies and the Missoula deputy who was in charge of making sure Agnes didn’t try to kill anyone again. “I killed beyond the dozens, Grace,” Agnes said in a voice that was run ragged by tears that had spent over the past week. _

_ “It was necessary.” _

_ “No it fucking wasn’t. It was never really necessary—” _

_ “Don’t you ever fucking start that shit with me,” and there were tears in Grace’s eyes, and with a lurch Agnes realized that if she thought her own hands were bloody, so were the hands of every single person she’d dragged along with her. If she admitted to her own guilt, what did she leave her followers with? _ )

Things were simpler in Hope County. 

Maybe Jacob was onto something about the breakdown of society, and the impossibility of returning to it once it’s been lost.

Or maybe Agnes was just fucking lonely. 

* * *

Grace brings food, too. Agnes is in a small ward in a state hospital closer to Helena now, where she’s one of only twenty or so patients. She’s been here for three months now and it’s finally feeling like she’s making some progress, but God only knows how long she’ll stay here. The charges from the assault on the nurse were bargained down to this stay in the state hospital, so it could be a while before she’s finally discharged. 

Grace has moved into an apartment nearby, because the drive back and forth from Fall’s End was killing her. They resolutely aren’t talking about it or what it implies for their relationship. Every other night or so Grace brings Agnes a meal she’s cooked so she’s not wasting away on mediocre hospital food. 

It’s nearly the holidays.

The nurses taped up some paper Christmas ornaments on the wall of the common room and someone built a snowman outside of the windows near the dining room; there’s a plastic menorah with tissue-paper “candles” that one of the orderlies brought in sitting on a table in the common room. 

(There’s no crosses or Jesus imagery, which is probably because of a request from Agnes’s psychiatrist. Nothing that could remind her of the cult, even though Joseph Seed had never used actual Christian symbols and the sight of the cross on the side of Fall’s End Church had been one of her comforts during those long weeks. Agnes doesn’t bother arguing with the doctor.)

Grace brings her Christmas cookies after her latest pilgrimage back to Hope County, plastic containers from the Ryes and Mary May and Father Jeffries’ congregation. There’s a dozen varieties, including cinnamon-sugar cookies decorated with red sprinkles and peanut butter topped with chocolate chips, but the second Agnes sees the crudely frosted  gingerbread men she has a favorite.

“Is that—” Agnes starts, picking a gingerbread man off the wax paper with a grin. It’s wearing only blue pants and has a pair of sunglasses piped over its face in yellow, smears of black icing on its body like tattoos. 

“Joseph Seed? Yeah. Jess’s idea, she thought it’d be funny.” Grace picks one up, too, and it’s clearly supposed to be Faith Seed in her white dress with flower-shaped sprinkles on top. With a crunch, Grace bites the gingerbread Faith’s head off.

Agnes just laughs and snaps off gingerbread Joseph’s left arm. A sweet, sweet revenge.

* * *

It starts as a silly project. Every day except Sunday from two to three in the afternoon, they have recreational therapy and the therapist offers to do a craft. Agnes is probably too damn old to be painting plastic Christmas ornaments, but it’s an activity that’s just busy enough to distract her without getting frustrating. Despite Agnes’s relative lack of artistic ability, the result isn’t half bad, even though it takes her four sessions to finish it. 

_ MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM EASTERN STATE HOSPITAL! _ is written in bright red paint, over a smiling snowman holding what was supposed to be a sniper rifle but looks more like a smudge. 

Grace’s laughter when she opens the paper towels that Agnes had wrapped the ornament up in is worth it all. 

* * *

The next ornament has a yellow airplane under the  _ MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM EASTERN STATE HOSPITAL! _ message. It’s for the Ryes, and Grace will drop it off at the post office for Agnes so it gets to them before the holiday itself. The commute to Helena was too long for Nick and Kim with the baby (though  _ Nicole Agnes Rye  _ isn’t really a baby anymore, she’s a full year old), so a letter and the ornament will have to suffice. 

The third’s for Father Jeffries, who makes the trip in person. It’s damn good to see him again, especially without a bulletproof vest and a gun hidden in his Bible. He’s visited Agnes before, but never since her transfer to Helena. He brings her a piece of pumpkin pie and laughs his ass off when he sees his version of the ornament with a roughly-painted gun-hiding Bible behind the text, and it feels damn good to sit and talk with him. 

“You know, when you and Grace want to get married, I’d love to officiate,” and Jerome’s wearing the biggest shit-eating grin that Agnes has ever seen on him. “And it’s my job to ask when you’re going to make her an honest woman.” 

“You think it’s like that?” Agnes challenges, hiding her expression behind the bottom of her water bottle.

“She moved across the state to visit you, Deputy.” At some point,  _ Deputy  _ had gone from a job title to a nickname for most of Agnes’s friends. 

“Her house burned down.” It was logical enough. Grace wasn’t happy in the cramped trailer park that most of Hope County had been displaced to in the aftermath of the cult. And truthfully, well—it wasn’t something that she and Grace had ever talked actually talked about. Grace had moved to Helena of her own volition, because presumably she knew that Agnes would never ask her to do it for fear of seeming selfish, no matter how much Agnes hoped she’d never stop visiting her. 

Jerome throws his hands up in mock surrender. “If that’s what it is, that’s what it is.”

They don’t talk about it after that, but instead of the usual red-tinted nightmare or rare dreamless blackness when Agnes manages her few scant hours of sleep, there’s an image of Grace in white with her rifle slung across her back. Her smile is so comforting, even as Agnes floats through the abyss of her dreamless mind. 

* * *

The fourth ornament is for Agnes’s sister, Molly, who looks tired and overworked when she finally stops in to visit Agnes. It’s not as funny as the ones before it, and frankly it’s a little sad to offer it, but it’s the best Agnes has right now. (Molly’s receiving at least nine hundred dollars a month from the Seed estate lawsuit settlement as long as Agnes remains in the hospital, on Agnes’s own request, which keeps Agnes from feeling too terrible about it all.) Molly doesn’t stay for more than a few minutes because she had to leave her children (all seven of them, ages fourteen to one) in the lobby, but she does give Agnes a plastic gift bag with a new pair of hospital-approved pyjamas in it and tells her she’ll be back on Christmas proper to have a holiday dinner with her. 

The fifth one is for Mary May, and has the Spread Eagle logo painted on it; the sixth is for Hurk Junior and is just a doodle of a monkey. The seventh is for Jess and is more elaborate again, an image of a deer that Agnes is damn proud of. Grace promises to mail them for her, like the one for Nick and Kim. 

There are more, of course: an American flag for Adelaide, a bunch of flames for Sharky, a Whitetail Militia logo for Wheaty, Cougar logos for Tracey and Virgil. The more that Agnes paints, the better she’s getting at it, and the easier it is for her to spend time in her head. 

It’s not like anything she ever did before the cult, so maybe that’s why it helps her feel more like herself. It’s something that no member of the Seed family had ever touched or tainted for her. 

For the first time in a over a year, handing off her painted ornaments to Grace to deliver with a chuckle and a warm smile from the other woman, Agnes feels.... like herself. 

Like she maybe she was meant to get out of Hope County alive after all.

* * *

Christmas comes without much fanfare. For the holiday, visiting hours are extended, and Agnes’s table in the common room is surrounded by her siblings and in-laws, most of whom drove in from where they’d scattered around Montana: Molly (of course), Beth (down from Great Falls with her husband Brent), Jack (who came up from West Yellowstone, bringing along Sara), and Henry (who’d settled in Billings with his partner Robert). Agnes was the only one who’d ever stayed close to Missoula, where they’d all been born and raised, but she was the baby of the family and she’d lived with their parents until her father’s death a decade back. 

They’ve all brought paper plates full of food to share ham and turkey and dressing and green beans leftover from the big family Christmas Eve dinner. Agnes is trying to cut a piece of turkey with the dull edge of a plastic spoon while Sara talks about Brandon’s Little League team getting to some big regional contest when Grace walks in. Grace freezes in her place, hands tightening around the plastic platter of Christmas cookies she’d brought along.

“Hey,” Grace finally manages to grind out, nervously staring at Agnes. 

“Grace, these are my brothers and sisters and in-laws. Everybody, this is Grace Armstrong, my.... Uh.” Agnes can feel her face burning bright red. “My fiancée?” she says hesitantly. Even though Molly had met Grace before, Agnes had never volunteered exactly what her relationship with Grace was and Molly had never asked. 

A smile breaks the anxious look on Grace’s face. “Yeah. Fiancée. We met in Hope County. I gotta say, your sister is a hell of a shot.” 

“Says the Olympic sharpshooter,” Agnes snaps back, waving her plastic spoon at Grace.

“You were in the Olympics?” Henry interrupts. “Agnes, you’re engaged to an Olympian and you never even told us?” His eyes glint like only an older sibling’s with new gloating material can.

“Well, come on, Grace, have a seat,” Beth coaxes as she pulls a fresh paper plate from the stack in the plastic bag. “We don’t bite.” With a little shuffling of seats, they manage to make room for Grace to squeeze in next to Agnes at the table and get her a fresh plate of food. 

“I only took a bronze at the Olympics,” Grace starts as she shovels green beans onto her spoon. “It wasn’t much to brag about, really. It’s the Bronze Star that matters more to me.”

“ _ And _ she’s a highly decorated veteran? Agnes, where have you been hiding this woman?” Henry asks accusatorily. 

Agnes bites down a smile.

* * *

The first thing Agnes paints on the watercolor pad that Grace brought her for Christmas is a portrait of Grace herself.

It’s not very good. The recreational therapist doesn’t have any skintone paints, so Agnes has to paint her in shades of purple and orange, which feels wrong. Agnes finishes the piece only out of stubborness, and sets out to try again with different colors.

Grace should be tinted with green like the trees that had surrounded the Lamb of God Church where they’d first met, red like the sharp contrast of the scarf she’d worn every day during those hellish weeks, blue like the sky had been in September in Hope County.

It’s still not very good. Agnes isn’t a born painter.

It doesn’t matter.

It’s not really about the end result anymore. It’s about the physical act of painting, which for some stupid reason is more therapeutic for Agnes than the hours of actual therapy that she has to attend. It’s about learning how to let go of the repetitive loop of fear and anxiety that she’s been trapped in since the helicopter crashed outside Joseph Seed’s compound. 

It’s helped her sleep too. Easier to let go of the nightmares when she can scribble them out onto paper and trap them there. She doesn’t sleepwalk anymore, which is a proud enough achievement, but Agnes’s real victory is one that seems so simple: she can’t remember what any of the Seeds really sounded like or exactly what each of them looked like unless she’s actively trying to recall. 

They’re fading from her memory just like anything else.

* * *

“You told your family we were engaged,” Grace says quietly, taking one of Agnes’s hands in both of hers. With the amount of time that Agnes has spent in hospitals and clinics her hard-won shooting calluses have faded away into softness, a sharp contrast to Grace’s palms. 

“Yeah.” Agnes stares at their hands instead of looking at Grace. It had been impulsive, and Agnes had no right to do it. Sure, Grace had followed her to Helena, but that didn’t necessarily mean she wanted to get  _ married _ . 

They hadn’t even been on a real date, for fuck’s sake. 

“I’m never gonna wear a real engagement ring. They make ones out of silicone now, that’s what I want, so I can still wear it when I’m at the range.” Grace presses their joined hands to her lips with a little smile. “Don’t bother with a proposal. I hate those damn things, all those videos of people trying to propose in public are annoying as hell.” 

The tension Agnes has been holding in since Christmas melts away. “You.... actually want to get married?” 

“It’d be a hell of a thing to call a woman your fiancée if you don’t actually wanna marry her, Solverson.” Grace’s face starts to fold into a frown, but Agnes shakes her head. 

“Of course I wanna marry you. I just—I could be here for god knows how long, Grace. It’s been a year and a half and I’m still an inpatient. I could be here for a year or two or even more. I might never be...” Agnes swallows hard, blinking away tears that threatened to spill over. “I might never be who I was again.” 

“And?” 

“And what? Are you just gonna wait for me forever?” 

Grace lets go of Agnes’s hand and slides from her seat across from Agnes to the one next to her, pulling her close. “I’m not waiting for anything, Aggie. You’re here right now, aren’t you?” Agnes shakes with a sob, burying her face into the softness of Grace’s red fleece sweatshirt. “Whatever way you are, however you are—that’s that way I love you.” Grace inhales sharply. 

( _ Grace had done a few weeks of her own in a ward in the veterans’ hospital in Fort Harrison when she’d come home from her first deployment. It was part of what drove her to visit Agnes every day, something Grace had only told her about a few months into their visiting routine. She’d been alone then, no friends left in Fall’s End and her father found dead while she was overseas. Grace didn’t want things to be like that for Agnes _ .)

“I love you too,” Agnes finally mumbles. Exhaustion settles into her bones, but it’s not unwelcome this time. It’s different from before. 

* * *

Of course the engagement rings are matching silicone, marbled in camo colors (that gets a laugh from Grace) and the coordinates to the Lamb of God Church etched inside the band. It’s a reminder of where they met and how far they’ve come.

Agnes puts hers on for the first time as she’s discharged from Eastern State. It looks damn good on her finger, like it’s always belonged there. Grace just gives a soft little laugh and laces their fingers together as they walk out of the ward for the last time, towards Grace’s truck that waits in the parking lot.

They’re going back to Fall’s End, to Hope County. 

It’s a new day, a shining September morning as they roll past the Hope County line sign. 

And for the first time in three years, Agnes is genuinely happy to see it. 

**Author's Note:**

> I actually made HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM [INSERT HOSPITAL NAME HERE] ornaments myself when I was in the hospital around the holidays. they're one of my favorite holiday decorations.
> 
> also, yes, agnes is named after molly solverson (who agnes's sister is literally named after) from season 1 of fargo. please watch fargo, it's so good, and deputy molly solverson is my favorite deputy of all time.


End file.
